… then the Leftists wouldn’t be shrieking “terrorist!” over a hundred supporters occupying a vacant visitor’s center.
But people of pallor? Drone strike ’em!
The real story … prepare to be infuriated.
h/t Jeff who adds
Locke’s formulation for the free person was life, liberty, and property. Private property rights should be sacrosanct. And just because a federal agency hasn’t targeted your land for confiscation doesn’t mean you should accept its targeting of others’ – regardless of how “racist” those whose land and liberty are under assault will be made to appear.
We used to know that.
************************************
According to the 2012 sentencing document, the jury found the men innocent or were deadlocked on all but two counts – the two fires the men admitted to starting – burning a total of about 140 acres. […]
During her tenure as a full time BLM employee from 1997-1999, Maupin recalls other fires accidentally spilling over onto BLM land, but only the Hammonds have been charged, arrested and sentenced, she said. Ranchers might be burning invasive species or maybe weeds in the ditch. “They would call and the BLM would go and help put it out and it was not a big deal.”
On the flip side, Maupin remembers numerous times that BLM-lit fires jumped to private land. Neighbors lost significant numbers of cattle in more than one BLM fire that escaped intended containment lines and quickly swallowed up large amounts of private land. To her knowledge, no ranchers have been compensated for lost livestock or other loss of property such as fences.
Gary Miller, who ranches near Frenchglen, about 35 miles from the Hammonds’ hometown, said that in 2012, the BLM lit numerous backfires that ended up burning his private land, BLM permit and killing about 65 cows.
A YouTube video named BLM Working at Burning Frenchglen-July 10, 2012 shows “back burn” fires allegedly lit by BLM personnel that are upwind of the main fire, including around Gary Miller’s corrals. The fire that appeared ready to die down several times, eventually burned around 160,000 acres, Miller said.
Bill Wilber, a Harney County rancher, said five lightening strikes on July 13, 2014, merged to create a fire on Bartlett Mountain. The fire flew through his private ground, burned a BLM allotment and killed 39 cows and calves.
While the fire could have been contained and stopped, BLM restrictions prevent local firefighting efforts like building a fireline, so only after taking in 397,000 acres did the fire finally stop when it came up against a series of roads.
The issue isn’t limited to Oregon. In 2013, two South Dakota prescribed burns started by the U.S. Forest Service–over the objections of area landowners– blew out of control, burning thousands of acres of federal and private land. Ranchers that suffered property damage from the Pautre fire in Perkins County, South Dakota filed extensive tort claims in accordance with federal requirements, but will receive no compensation because USDA found the U.S. Forest Service not responsible for that fire. .
Why the Hammonds?“The story is like an onion, you just keep peeling back the layers,” Maupin said. […]
“The last holdouts on that cow-free wilderness are the Hammonds,” said Maupin. Though some still have BLM grazing permits, the Hammonds are the last private landowners in the area.
“It’s become more and more obvious over the years that the BLM and the wildlife refuge want that ranch. It would tie in with what they have,” said Rusty Inglis, an area rancher and retired U.S. Forest Service employee.
The Hammonds also lost their ability to water cattle on one BLM permit when refuge personnel drained a watering hole that the Hammonds had always used.
Maupin said the government scientists and resource managers working “on the ground” supported the Hammonds’ use of the water but that the high level bureaucrats backed special interest anti-grazing groups. “There is a huge disconnect between employees on the ground and the decision-makers.” She said that divide builds tension between ranchers and federal agencies.
It’s not a disconnect … for the Feds, all property are belong us.
Know is kind of a funny word regarding political things we used to be at least aware of, or believe. Modern natural right theory, deriving from Thomas Hobbes (in conspiracy with his tutor Nicolo Machiavelli) used to be quite the thing. Not so much any longer, owing to negligence we can guess, if not to intentional disregard on the part of our Saint-Simonist betters. One moment of reflection on Hobbes however, that little piece which seems to stick in peoples’ minds, that is — the war of all against all, otherwise called the state of nature — ought to have been sufficient to spur inquiry. What’s this about, people might ask? Do people want to know? Nah, they don’t want to know. See? Why revisit all that strife and pain. Better to live slaves.
[…] Hawkins’ Right Wing News and Raw Story, Oregonian, Raw Story and KOIN-TV, Occupy Democrats, protein wisdom, Jeff Goldstein and Vox […]
The press should like this but, then they would have accidentally cover the back story.
When the prevailing ethos encourages people to assume that the state of nature had no room for property, nor for individual initiative (except by the ultra-wise natural and benevolent philosopher-king somehow blessed with greater intellect by virtue of everybody telling each other so), weird shit just happens.
This is known as bad luck.
The philosopher-king crack is funny, at least insofar as the Saint-Simonist’s took it pseudo-seriously and voila!, installing themselves in the benevolent role: Instant tyranny. The inability of the Saint-Simonists to read and understand Plato ought to have been our first clue.
Greetings:
Overall, this strikes me as the flip side of what I like to refer to as The New Reverse Jim Crow Laws and all those faithful Progressives we have spawned are quick to reinforce my observation.
The old Jim Crow laws illegally restricted the behavior of American Negroes The New Reverse ones illegally grant Progressives and their fellow travelers license to, under the guise of a “political demonstration” to participate in the “civic disruption” of the day. The authority of the state is suspended through various administrative devices such as “prosecutorial discretion” or excessive workload but whatever the reason inappropriate behavior is not firmly amended.
This seems to me to have started during the second Bush presidency and has continued to develop ever since apparently due to the availability of professional Progressive organizers and funding with, I guess, the “Black Lives Matter” cabal being its most recent beneficiary.
So, it will be interesting to me to see how this incident winds it way through what’s left of our legal system not that I sense any danger that my above analysis will fail me. Whatever the actual legal analysis of this “action” these people have shown them selves willing to join the battle, and the battle is upon us.
Marx and Lenin riffed on the philosopher-king bit too…
Yep, indeed. The way I look at it, there are two streams which issue from Saint-Simon, related but distinct: 1) Marx, 2) Comte. With Marx we get gulags, with Comte we get (sociology) bureaucracies like the EU. Toss up? More or less. Both though firmly believe they alone are possessors of political wisdom. And Plato just laughs and laughs.
About the bad luck, Machiavelli had this to say (Prince, ch. XXV):
*** I conclude, therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out. For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her. ***
As long as you are paying taxes on property, you do not own that property.
Land has exceptional attributes. Any other kind of property, one can create and transport.
I will complain loudly about how high my property taxes are, but about their mere existence? No.
remember the good ole days when taking over gov’t property meant a state capitol building in madison wi?
I hear ya McGehee, and I can understand taxing you when you buy a property, and maybe even tax you on any appreciation of the property, but to keep taxing you every year even after the property is paid off and even if it’s worth the same or less than you paid for it? That’s straight up bullshit.
When you own property in a jurisdiction, you have established a claim on certain services in that jurisdiction (even if you don’t live there). Those services have to be funded and everyone with a claim on them rightfully should contribute revenue to fund them.
Not every jurisdiction funds those services with property tax. Denali Borough in Alaska, for example.
Hmmm. Apparently Denali does levy property tax now. The site does say many boroughs don’t, but Denali’s the one I remember from when I lived in Alaska.
What services do you claim that aren’t themselves taxed? I think schools are a major consumer of property tax, but not every property owner has children. You could argue police and firefighter but if you have an undeveloped property those services are meaningless, and what if your area has a volunteer FD? Roads, but most times the developer pays for that.
I’m with Cranky, if I bought a property, but have to pay thousands of dollars a year to the government for the ‘priviledge’, it ain’t really mine.
For legal analysis purposes, I think of real property as an exclusive right to use (exploit) the property for all legal purposes.
The dwindling number of ‘legal purposes” seems to be a problem.
Undeveloped or not, I wouldn’t want people dumping trash on it. And even volunteer fire departments cost money to equip and operate, and in many states that’s by property tax.
Undeveloped land won’t have developer-built roads for access, so you’ll use public-built roads. Even when a developer builds roads, they become public property and have to be maintained by the county.
If you own land, you depend on the title being valid and unchallengeable — that means courts, recorders of deeds, all kinds of stuff almost nobody ever thinks about unless they own land.
The alternative is to pay a landlord every month for property that will never even pretend to be “really” yours. Everything in life is a trade-off.
Indeed. We think of those feudal titles as being dubbed a knight, lord or duke — but the word “title” in real estate law comes down directly from that practice. And feudal lords owed the grantors of title not only a regular tribute in money or produce, but levies (ahem) of men and arms in the event of war.
I think I’ve got it pretty good in this century, actually.
A landlord, engaging in commerce from his property, defiantly can be legitimately taxed. A guy that paid off his 30 year loan and is now retired, not so much IMHO.
Someone that owns property that is being illegally dumped on is a victim of a crime and should not be made to pay for it. Titles and recording of deeds are paid up front on top of the tax you pay at purchase, a one time event I have no problem with as a sales tax.
Isn’t there something in the constitution against titles, i.e. Lords and dukes and the like?
“Definitely”, that should be….
UNBELIEVABLE Update – Oregon “Bundy Militia” Standoff – The U.S. Attorney At The Heart of The Hammond Family Problem…
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/01/04/unbelievable-update-oregon-bundy-militia-standoff-the-federal-prosecutor-at-the-heart-of-the-hammond-family-problem/
If you aint’ scared of the BLM using an anti-terrorism law to give two people five years AFTER a plea deal and time served for arson due to a brush burn that got out of hand…
wow.
It would be the Justice Department that brought the charges, wouldn’t it?
Sadly, I find the whole story all too believable.
Your revolution has arrived. If 50,000 of you show up at the Malheur visitor center, you might be able to form a country. Go on, git.